Graf, Max

Graf, Max, Austrian music critic, teacher, and musicologist, father of Herbert Graf; b. Vienna, Oct. 1, 1873; d. there, June 24, 1958. He studied music history with Hanslick at the Univ. of Vienna (Ph.D., 1896, with the diss. Die Musik der Frau in der Renaissancezeit’, publ. in Vienna, 1905), and also had lessons in theory with Bruckner. From 1900 to 1938 he wrote music criticism for the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung; he lectured on musicology and aesthetics at the Cons, of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (1902-09); then was on the staff of the Academy of Music (1909-38). In 1938, when Austria was incorporated into the Greater German Reich, he went to the U.S. He returned to Vienna in 1947. A brilliant writer in his homeland, he lapsed into speculative journalism in his books publ. in America, which are rendered worthless because of blatant inaccuracies.

Writings

Deutsche Musik im 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1898); Wagner-Probleme und andere Studien (Vienna, 1900); Die innere Werkstatt des Musikers (Stuttgart, 1910); Richard Wagner im “Fliegenden Hollander” (Vienna and Leipzig, 1911); Vier Gesprache iiber deutsche Musik (Regensburg, 1931); Legend of a Musical City (N.Y, 1945; 2nd ed., 1969); Composer and Critic(N.Y, 1946; 2nd ed., 1969); Modem Music (N.Y, 1946; 2nd ed., 1969; Ger. ed., 1953, as Geschichte und Geist der modernen Musik); From Beethoven to Shostakovich (N.Y., 1947; 2nd ed., 1969); Die Wiener Oper (Vienna, 1955); Jede Stunde war erfüllt: Ein Halbes Jahrhundert Musik und Theaterleben (Vienna and Frankfurt am Main, 1957).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire